


a day of rest

by DaScribbla



Series: for the wages of sin is death [1]
Category: Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M, Murder, Post-Funeral Sex, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Southern Gothic, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: The hours Gertrude spends after her husband's funeral are not spent alone.





	a day of rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dinochickennugget](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dinochickennugget/gifts).



> I tried to separate this from Park Chan-Wook’s film “Stoker” as much as I could, but it was basically impossible. Nicole Kidman’s Tennessee Williams-style of crazy just kept on seeping in.
> 
> The "graphic depictions of violence" warning refers to an explicit description of a corpse post-murder, particularly the murder weapon.

> 2 Samuel 3:28 - And the woman of Tekoah said unto the king, My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house: and the king and his throne be guiltless.

*

Her son was playing the piano downstairs. _Clair de Lune._ The notes filtered through Gertrude’s head, cold and tinkling like wind chimes in her ear, and left her feeling nauseous in the summer heat that seemed to melt through the open window of her bedroom. She had a headache coming on, and the distant strains of the piano did nothing to alleviate the feeling, but she let him keep playing. It seemed to be one of the few things that could still make him come out of himself, besides prayer and his two friends. 

Gertrude couldn’t understand it: when she’d been nineteen, she’d had a coterie of friends in addition to a hive network across the majority of the South courtesy of her college’s sorority. And she’d certainly never had the sort of mind that wasted long hours on theology. Even the ‘allelujahs’ recited dutifully every Sunday of her childhood required a level of mental exertion to understand that she couldn’t find within herself. Gertrude made her devotions to people rather than to her faith.

Her son had made the opposite decision. Perhaps it was different with boys. Gertrude didn’t know.

Or perhaps it had nothing to do with himself, and everything to do with what he had seen. 

 

It had been two hours since the funeral, and her son hadn’t spoken to her. The only person who’d been able to coax a word or two from him had been the reverend, who, as he greeted them after the service, had placed a dark hand on Hamlet’s shoulder and said kindly, _‘You’re still thinking of entering the ministry, is that right?’_ Hamlet had nodded: _‘that’s right, Father._ ’The reverend nodded reassuringly and suggested they have a talk. Gertrude had seen them later beneath the large yew tree in the churchyard, speaking animatedly, and wished she were able to speak to her son with such ease. 

And then she’d been distracted by — well —

It was that distraction that was the cause of the ache in her temples. 

*

Her husband had not died a clean death. That was what the police officers had said when they sat her down carefully that nightmarish morning a week ago and explained the situation. _Your husband did not die a clean death._ The words, so delicately put, didn’t become meaningful to Gertrude until they brought her down to the morgue, and she’d seen the axe splintering through the back of her husband’s skull, the gore and brain matter that coated the blade, the little dark hairs that had been glued to the steel by his blood. 

Once she felt less faint, she’d given her statement to the police officers who’d brought her there. 

_“I was at home, doing some painting.”_

_“Is there anyone who can corroborate that, ma’am?”_

_“Yes, officer. You can ask Ophelia. She does our secretarial work. We were working with our doors open, so.”_

The officers hadn’t seemed terribly suspicious of her. An axe of that size, they said, couldn’t have been lifted by a woman — especially not one of Gertrude’s delicate frame.

 

Things became thornier once they questioned her son.

_“I saw it.”_

The police officer, a gray-haired man in his late fifties who likely had not anticipated a murder case when he’d risen that morning, frowned. _“Saw what, son?”_

_“I saw him kill my father.”_

_“Who’s ‘him’?”_

_“I don’t know. But I saw it. They were talking, and then he grabbed the axe, and then it was in his head.”_

The officer, scribbling furiously in his notepad. _“Where was this, son?”_

_“By our shed out by the woods.”_

_“The killer — did you see his face?”_

_“No.”_

_“And why were you there?”_

_“I’d come down to talk to him. My father.”_

 

Oh, yes. He’d talked to his father, too. Just never to Gertrude. 

*

The piano cut off abruptly as the doorbell sounded with a discreet chime. Gertrude sighed. It had been too much to hope that the town’s other residents would leave them in peace; funerals and grief were more or less institutions. Of course they would have visitors. 

She rose from where she’d been reclined on her bed and, pausing only to check her reflection in the dusty mirror over the dresser — some gray in her white-blonde hair; the only thing she seemed to have passed on to her son was her white colorlessness — she slipped downstairs, the wooden staircase smooth beneath the stockinged soles of her feet.

 

It was him at the door. The brother.

He and Hamlet stood in the cloakroom, Hamlet’s eyes on his shoes, responding to the other man’s gentle questions with nods, shakes of the head, or monosyllables.

He had the boyish face she remembered from her early years with her husband. More laughter, though, in his eyes. Scruffier hair, too. And he was sizing her up where she stood in the doorway: taking in her white-blonde-gray hair, her black dress, her feet, bare except for her flesh-toned pantyhose. Then he looked at her face. 

She blushed hard.

*

_“You must be sweltering in that.”_

She’d been watching her son and the reverend’s son — the reverend himself having left several minutes before — sit and talk beneath the yew tree. Now she turned to find a stranger beside her, somber in his black suit.

_“I’m sorry?”_

_“I said, you must be sweltering in that.”_

In truth, she was; the humid July morning had left her hose clinging to her thighs and her dress to her spine the way the moss did to the steps of the church. But she’d been taught not to discuss such things. 

_“It’s not so bad. You must have it worse,”_ she added.

He didn’t directly reply. _“I’m his brother,”_ he said, holding out his hand to shake. _“Claudius. I expect he didn’t mention me much.”_

 

Then, just like now, she blushed the long, dark, hot blush of a schoolgirl looking at her first edition of _Playboy_.

*

The ice in her lemonade popped and cracked as she watched him lean against the kitchen counter in his shirtsleeves, his brandy sweating in his hand. Hamlet had left them alone, a furrow in his brow, and Gertrude suspected that he’d slipped upstairs to distract Ophelia from her typing. She hoped. The knowledge that her son had a passion for something beyond Scripture would have been reassuring. 

Claudius was telling her some story about himself and her husband when they were children — something about garden snakes and shrieking nannies — but she hardly listened. She was looking at his face. 

“I think we still have some ice cream left,” she said. “Join me?”

He waved a hand. “Don’t like cold food,” he said. 

“Well, I’ll have some, if you don’t mind.” She opened the freezer, her back to him, and felt his gaze run over. Long, dark, hot. “I could do with something sweet.”

She served herself one oversized scoop in one of her glass bowls and ate several spoonfuls before she could meet his eyes again.

Claudius was gazing at her over the rim of his glass as he sipped his brandy. 

A thin trickle of sweat ran down the back of one thigh, leaving a damp trail in her hose. Her ice cream was already half soup in the heat of the kitchen.

The bowl clunked onto the counter.

“I suppose you think I’m very wicked,” she said, already stepping forward. 

He didn’t need to ask her what she meant, to her relief. His hands were already settling around her waist. “It’s Sunday,” he murmured. “I expect even the Lord needs a day of rest.” 

An open-mouthed kiss, no preamble, just heat and tongue all at once. 

“You taste sweet,” he remarked, pulling her closer.

“It’s the ice cream,” she whispered against his jaw. “I’m not as sweet as all that.”

 

It was peeling her damp pantyhose down to her knees and the metallic sound of his belt as he unbuckled it. The faint pressure as he eased inside, his lips on her throat. Birds jabbered in the trees outside the open window. 

He didn’t fuck like her husband did, with slow, deliberate thrusts. He was harsher. Gertrude closed her eyes, breathed in the powdery scent of his hair under her nose, and tried not to think about her husband decaying six feet beneath the earth, or the axe that had nearly torn his head apart. Her fears. The blood and the little baby hairs. 

There were footsteps in the hall outside the kitchen. Moments later, the piano resumed its playing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr! My main is @williamshakennotstirred, and my Shakespeare blog is @princehaldaddyissues. Hit me up!


End file.
